"On the road to nowhere...."

Just really quickly... If I get to upload my photo, then it's from Tad Lo Grand Central.... Where I waited for seems like the longest time... Only thing moving there was,domestic animals crossing the road, always when a truck or an ancient tractor were passing, as to keep me wide awake, for fear of any duck, goose, 3-legged dog or cow getting hurt....!

Vientiane is probably the finest capital city of any nation in the world... Well, of the many I've seen , anyway! The french influence is pronounced but so is the Asian way of living and the two compliment eachother in a rarely found harmony.... ! No tall buildings to take the view from the sky and not too much traffic to pollute the air... There was a sign on the door to this Internet shop, saying; "Flat for rent" - Oh, how I would love that! Had my breakfast with Irene, my new best friend, at "The Scandinavian Bakery" Read an old Sweedish newspaper from the the 15.th of June.... Can see that nothing musch has happend in the world...(?!) But It was a very nice "Danish" breakfast, and after a month of either fruitsalad or white rice with bananas as first meal of the day, it was a real hoot!! Oh , and we re-celebrated my birthday at "The Sticky Fingers" restaurant...last night! (Yes, I got our man; Paco a T-shirt!) That was nice! And it set past annoyances right and good again!

I'm now getting ready to take a national flight to the absolut north ;

Luang Nam Tha... And from there a bus to Muang Sing,about 10km from the Chinese border... I will stay there for some days, trek around and go to the big country market on June 28... At the Burmese border town of Xieng Kok, when all the various hill tribes from Burma, Thailand, Laos and China get together and sell their stuff; Food, silverware and other handicrafts... There'shardly any foreigners that far north.. No Internet and therefor no contact with my Blog for a week or so...

After Muang Sing, I'll take a bus back to Nong Khiaw and get a boat down to the World Heritage village of Luang Pra bang, which is also extremely touristy .... But still supposed to be very nice and from where I have to catch the slow boat up the Mekong to the Thai Border... But loads of Internet shops in Luang Pra bang.. So you'll hear from me there!

Have to be at the airport in 30 min... so I'm outta here!

"- And I've seen pretty people disappear like smoke...."

Vientiane.... Sounds like a girls name... The capital of Laos is still very French in its Indochine way... I got myself a nice Cafe au lait and a fresh croissant, when I came rolling in this morning at 5:30....!

After some really nice days, yes.. it did pick up considerably after my last entry... And I did meet some really nice people in Tad Lo... Two English couples and a Finnish guy, who was a professional storyteller... And what an enchanted place to be: Tad Lo, this one horse (But loads of cows, pigs and chicken!) town on the border of the river and a very nice waterfall... Rented my self a small, very basic, bungalow ( no shower, only by pail!) and ended by for staying there for three days... One morning I woke up by the sound a cow and her calf makes when they rip up the grass from under the stilts of the house...

Then I got a ticket for the so called VIP bus from Tad Lo - Pakse - Vientiane... At the palmhut, also selling live snakes and lizards, potatoes, onions, washingpowder and good, good coffee....! It was leaving, well supposed to leave at 16:30, so I hiked down to the main road at 15:00 hrs.... Ended up waiting for two and a half hours before the bus finally rolled in... at Tad Lo central, just where the ducks and the black pigs cross the road....

In Pakse we'd to change for the night ride to Vientiane... Now what are the odds to have to share your seat with a morbidly obese person in Laos? Everyone around is thin as sticks!! But yeah... I just won the national lottery and found my self confined to half of a seat, because of my having to sit next to the only fat person of the whole of Laos for the next 11 hrs... Not only was this person big, but she also radiated pure heat! Very strange feeling, like sharing a bed with a small warm kid in a cold room... You're freezing on one side and which ever part of you, who unwillingly mind you, touches the other body is just burning up...

Great ride... There must be some special hell, invented for the person who dreamed up bus transport in Asia: Loud local (or Thai = Sob stories about brokenhearted girls/boys) pop music going nonstop, karaoke DVDs on a loop/or a dubbed Hong-kong Kung Fu movie, also on eternal loop, noodles dripping with fish sauce served up at 2 in the morning, loud beeping of the horn, whenever overtaking something that moves within a kilometer of the actual road and unexplained stops in the middle of nowhere/or a restaurant in the middle of nowhere... The bus does not move until the owner deems that enough money has been spent in his/her establishment... This has pretty much been the panorama of traveling by bus over longer distances ( This meaning more than an hour!) in Thailand, Cambodia, Viet Nam and now in Laos... I personally would like to find the person, who invented this "Passenger oriented wellness" and send him\her on a never ending bus ride through Southeast Asia until this person is begging on their crying knees for mercy... As I almost did this morning...

But then Vientiane came into view, and I had the very good fortune to meet up with Irene from Canada, but of Philippine origin and we are sharing a room here and going out for dinner at "Sticky Fingers"... Tomorrow I'll fly way up north; Luang Nam Tha - The Burmese/Chinese border and make my slow descend to Luang Prabang, where I'll get a slow boat to Thailand (2 days on the Mekong)

- By the way, I met the danish girl (again) on the Tuktuk coming into town, this morning.. we tried to make it a day together, the three of us, but we had the misfortune to start talking about the danish emigration laws.. and as I understood by her choice of words, that she agrees with Pia Kjaersgaard, who has very xenophobic standpoints.. - I sort of drifted my own way through town which is absolutely lovely.. Old wooden houses of max. 3 floors high, old derelict french villas ( but also some gloriously restored from near ruins!) and a "laisse faire" of the inhabitants, that now suits me just fine... After a short siesta.. I Stumbled in the soaring heat (It hasn't rained for three days, now) down to the small riverside restaurants with a view of Thailand and had a great afternoon Mango shake... And now my inner dinner bell tolls - Or maybe I'm just in love?